Guest Viewpoint: Vestal not 'neutral' on gas drilling

Mar. 5, 2013

Written by

Philip Kraft

All five members of the Vestal Town Board recently signed a letter to the New York Appellate Court supporting lawsuits against the towns of Dryden and Middlefield. The towns are being sued by a landowner and by Norse Energy because they have banned fracking using local zoning laws. Their right to do so under state home rule provisions was previously upheld by two state Supreme Court decisions. In signing the letter, the Vestal board has, at last, officially announced its opposition to home rule and its support of fracking.

The town board went even further. At its Feb. 13 meeting, the board appropriated $1,450 to send Supervisor John Schaffer to the State Association of Towns convention in New York City. The purpose of Schaffer’s trip, in his own words, was to kill any attempt by the association to support Dryden and Middlefield. We don’t know enough about fracking to take a position, the supervisor said at the board meeting. The Association of Towns has no right to support its own members against multinational gas corporations. Vestal, he said, must be neutral about drilling until we have “all the facts.”

This was hardly the first time board members have proclaimed that they have not taken a position on drilling. In fact, according to the supervisor, the board has never even discussed the matter.

The claim of neutrality has been repeated endlessly for almost two years. Now we know it was a lie. Here is what the gas lobbyists’ letter says: the signers support “a program that allows development of our natural gas resources”; they accept “statutory limitations to home rule”; and they agree it is “in the public interest to drill” for oil and gas, which may “become the economic savior of our state.”

This is not exactly a neutral position based on “facts.”

It’s simply not believable that all five board members, who claim with a straight face never to have discussed gas drilling, even informally, could spontaneously come to identical pro-drilling positions.

In signing the letter, Vestal officials have joined one of the most powerful special interests in the country in strong-arming two tiny upstate hamlets exercising their rights under state law.

In signing the letter they have admitted to systematically misleading Vestal residents about the town’s “neutrality” on drilling.

Signing the letter and sending Schaffer to New York City to kill home rule strips away any pretense of neutrality. How can the board be neutral when it feels free to spend town tax money to protect out-of-state corporations and a minority of landowners? The Vestal Gas Coalition claims 600 members, some of whom don’t even live in Vestal; 2,500 Vestal residents have signed petitions against fracking.

And signing the letter exposes being “neutral” for what it is — a dereliction of the board’s duty to look out for its constituents while smoothing the way for drilling that most of us don’t want.